21 levels of Self-Deception: THIRD EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

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same time in denial of the body.

The problem is neatly summarised in this quote from Thomas Moore:

‘We seem to be always reaching for an elusive goal, rather than loving the world in front of our eyes, just as we put anxious effort into becoming a new person, instead of loving and living the life we’ve always had and always will have.’

Thomas Moore — The Re-enchantment of Everyday Life

In a similar vein, Carl Jung said that there are two ways to lose your soul and one is to worship a god outside of you.

All of this is not to say that image and representation are necessarily bad things. Imagination, creativity, dreams, hopes — all of these rely on image almost by definition. It may be useful here to refer to a ‘progression’ in the way we experience the world — in the way our embodied selves operate. This is a progression that I have referred to in previous works. The progression is — Sensation, Perception, Impulse, Image, Symbol. Our ‘first contact’ with the world then is through sensation. This is not simply meant to mean via the familiar five senses, but also includes inner sensations and emotions such as joy, generosity, fear, anxiety and envy. Sensation can often operate at the sub-conscious level — it is only fully acknowledged at the perception stage and it is only reflected upon at the image stage. (Note, from the progression therefore, our actions — impulse — are often prior to reflection!) The

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